Crafting & Gifting for the Holidays

Hello all, it has been so long!!
Anyways, I have decided that since the economy is down like J-Sean and I am broke as a joke, I will craft all of my gifts for the holidays!! (With the exception of a lovely Pyrex bowl set I got on black Friday for my best friend, but you know, BFFs are always exceptions!!)

So my standard gift package includes:
White Chocolate Cranberry Fudge
Thumbprint Cookies (With Boysenberry or Orange Preserves in the thumb)
Something cute I have stitched up recently!!!
And umm.... Love?? Oh yes! A personalized Holiday note.

I really like Target dollar isle for anything wrapping-wise, as well as little stocking stuffers. the drawback is that my daughter is always with me, so I can't sneak things by her. I trust her short term memory more than anything, at this point.

I've actually gotten lazier and lazier. I was going to hand make recipe books, and then I thought I would buy them and hand write them, and now I'm just typing my recipes and mass-printing them, and pasting them in the books instead. So much easier! I hope my friends forgive me. Recipe books (for those of you who like to try and review new recipes) are nice hand made gifts, since your recipient will know you tested it first, and you can add your own pointers and advice, or variations. And leave room for their own! Then, its usefulness is two-fold!

Happy holidays to everyone out there, and good luck for the New Year!

The Best Pumpkin Pancakes

 So recently I stumbled upon some AMAZING pancakes. And I mean, UH-MAZE-ING. They're great solo, with butter, or with the whole sha-bang (butter, syrup, powdered sugar, anything really!). They're from Food Wishes, a blog which AllRecipes linked to recently in their featured seasonal recipes. I've taken the liberty of reproducing the recipe below with only two seasoning changes I made (I'm a bit of an addict on flavor, so the changes will be off to the edge, don't worry. If you like a more subtle flavor, go with the original). If you'd like more instruction on mixing methods, follow the link above to Food Wishes, there is a lovely video showing you exactly how to mix flour, milk, eggs, etc. But really, they're just pancakes. Hard to mess up! (especially with this flavor)

Pumpkin From Scratch (Part 1)

So I recently went bananas, (err, pumpkins?) over making my own pumpkin puree, since Safeway doesn't seem to be carrying canned pumpkin recently (Trader Joe's does, but the lines are SO LONG!!).
I went to town with my chef knife to open it up initially, because (as I discovered) it can be really difficult to cut a pumpkin in half!! Cleavers work well too, my favorite was the high-swung chop to break this bad boy up!

Ever had a hard time trying to clean out the goop without breaking too much of the sides? Ice cream scoops work really well, because they give you a better angle than a regular spoon, and they have a deeper bowl so you don't have to empty them as often.

The goop separated, I microwaved sections of the sides in a glass dish with a cover to cook them. It took about 15-25 minutes, depending on the size of the piece. When cooked, it should be pretty mushy & peel away from the skin easily. My favorite tools for this process are a fork and spoon: The fork spears a section in place skin-side-down, and you use the spoon to gently scrape away at the pumpkin meat.

After you've got all your pumpkin meat cooked, you can throw it in a blender or Cuisinart to finish pureeing it. Cuisinart is easier, blender takes time to blend, then smash down, then blend some more... not fun!! After it's all blended you can either cook with it, bake with it, eat it straight (My daughter loves it with cinnamon & a pinch of sugar) or freeze it for cooking later! I recommend freezing in 1 or 2 cup amounts in freezer bags, so it's easy to thaw just what you need.

Happy Halloween!

Lemonade & Variations

What could be better for the tail-end of summer than a cool glass of lemonade, or maybe a lemonade twist? My favorite drink for hot weather is the Rose Lemonade, which I devised after visiting a restaurant in Ashland, OR (that sadly is no more!). Alternatives are included in my recipes to give your last summer event a perfect drink compliment. So what's your favorite style?

"Tamalito," now available at home!!

I went through a stage recently where I cross-reminisced, thinking wistfully of making mole in Mexico, the nights out with my family at our local Cantina, ordering only "3 sides of corn-mush, please" as a child  (before it closed and became a sports bar), and enjoying creole potato salad at summer picnics with friends... so I created a go-to recipe list whenever I'm feeling like I need a Mexican or Caribbean home-made, healthy (well, not always) pick-me-up.

My sides, I feel, are what really make the meal. You can make pollo con recado rojo, but if you serve it on white rice with a Caesar salad, I for one will be disappointed. My go-to list of sides includes:

• Creole Potato Salad (recipe taught to me by a friend's mom, and then tweaked a bit by yours truly)
• 5 Flavor Rice (my own recipe)
• Tamalito (Chevy's recipe, Mmm)
• Re-fried beans (my own recipe)
• 3 Pepper Salsa (my own rendition)
  

Sticky Pear Pudding & Toffee Sauce

Hello! So today I'm starting this new blog to differentiate between my baking/ cooking and my usual posts about my daughter. All food, all the time, I say. I've been making a lot of breads lately (having gotten over my fear of yeast, waiting... I couldn't handle it!!) and will post my favorite recipes on that topic soon. Today I made a recipe from Better Homes & Gardens that was labeled as a pudding, but is more of a sticky cake.